War never changes, but Fallout is better than ever.
Outstanding story
Amazing visuals and sound
Huge detailed world
Fun combat
Balanced good/evil choices
Balanced skills
Infrequent loading
Tons of replay value
Excellent use of the Pipboy
Fallout refined
THE BAD:
Talking head dialog
3rd person camera
Minor graphic issues
Fallout is both one of the best RPG's ever made, and also one of the least played. This is partly because of the series primarily being released on PC's, but also because when the first game was released in 1997, another famous RPG was also released: Final Fantasy 7. With more gamers playing on consoles than PC's, and the series not having a major release in 10 years, it's no wonder some people haven't played a Fallout game before. That's all about to change.
Fallout 3 technically a sequel to the first two games, but it doesn't directly connect to them. The game takes place in an alternate future. After World War 2, the Cold War never ended. As the Earth's oil resources started to dry up, political tensioned rouse. In 2077, a nuclear war started and in a few hours the world was destroyed. Your ancestors were one of the few that were able to escape to large underground fallout shelters called Vaults.
The game starts literally at your character's birth inside Vault 101. Your mother dies during child birth, and your father, the Vault's doctor is forced to raise you on his own. The first hour or so of the game takes place during your childhood in the vault, and acts as a tutorial for the game as well as setting up your characters stats. It's a great way to show how life is inside the sealed Vault, and sets up future events. Eventually your father leaves the vault, and you must venture into the unknown nuclear wasteland of Washington DC to find him. Without a doubt, Fallout 3's story is the strongest in the series, and one of the best in video game history. It's masterfully written, and has lots of memorable characters.
Fallout 3 is made by Bethesda, creators of the Elder Scroll series and most recently Oblivion. It's also the first Fallout to be released on consoles, other than the non-canon hack & slash Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel. One of the complaints about Fallout 3 from "hardcore" Fallout fans is that it amounts to Oblivion with guns. If someone was to just watch a video of the player walking around, and talking with NPC's I could see how they would jump to this conclusion.
But beyond the way you explore the world, and talk with NPC's there is nothing Oblivion-like about this game. Fallout 3's character progression is based around experience, not using skills. Since there is a level cap of 20, and you're only given so many skill points to assign per level, it is impossible to become a master at everything. Therefore, you need to plan out what type of character you want to be.
Skills in Fallout 3 will be immediately familiar to people who have played past games in the series. There are combat skills (small guns, melee, energy weapons), support skills (medicine, hacking, sneaking), and social skills (bartering, speech). These skills allow you to make any type of character you want. You can be a power armor wearing brawler, a smooth talking pacifist, a long range sniper, or anything in between.
Every time you gain enough exp to level up, you can assign skill points to any of your skills, and choose a perk. Perks are special bonuses that affect your character. Examples include "Bloody Mess" that increases the gore and lets you do additional damage, "Scoundrel" that gives you bonuses to barter and speech skills, or "Lead Belly" that increases your resistance to radiation poisoning.
You can check all of your skills, items, and stats through your wrist-mounted Pipboy 3000. When you press the B button, your character will swing the Pipboy into view. From here, you can manage every aspect about your character. It's a clever way to tie the Pipboy from past Fallout games into the current setting while still making it feel like something tangible that's always with you.
The first two games in the series were 2D and played from an isometric view. Fallout 3 has changed to a first person view. Although there is a third person camera, it's pretty much worthless for anything other than seeing what your character looks like.
Just because the game had guns, and is viewed from a first person camera doesn't mean it's a FPS. Combat plays out in real-time, but you'll waste a lot of ammo, and die a lot if you play the game like a twitch shooter. This is a true RPG at heart, despite its presentation. Combat is based around your character's stats. So even though you might have the crosshairs over an enemy's head you won't always get a headshot.
Instead you are strongly encouraged to use VATS (Vault-tec Assisted Targeting System) in combat. When you press the LB button, the game will pause allowing you to target specific body parts on your target. Attached to each body part is a percentage to hit. If you shoot someone in the arm, they'll drop their weapon. If you shoot them in the leg they'll move slower. Once you issue your commands and press the A button you're treated to a 3rd person cinematic showing your kills. It's very gory, and works really well. The only minor complaint is that when you're in an enclosed space, the camera can get stuck, and doesn't always show you a good perspective on the action.
When you take damage in combat, there are several ways to heal yourself. The most readily available method is to drink or eat. This will restore hit-points, but most sources of food and water are irradiated. Thus you need to carefully balance your need to heal versus getting radiation poisoning. If you become too irradiated, your stats will start to be affected, and you'll eventually die.
Another way to heal is to use stimpacks. These are sort of like morphine, and will restore HP just like drinking. However, like all drugs in the game, if you take too much of them you can become addicted. This forces you to maintain a delicate balance between healing and addiction, and further immerses you in the game world.
Like past games, you can also get NPC's to help you in combat. But you can't issue orders to them, and they tend to do their own thing. It's not bad, but it would have been nice to be able to have them target a specific enemy. As it works, they're really just a distraction for the enemies.
Combat is fun, and works well, but the real meat of Fallout 3 is the choices you make. There were glimpses of this in Oblivion, but it was difficult to play as an evil character since the story focused on fighting evil. Fallout 3 doesn't have this problem. Since the story focuses on finding your father, there's plenty of room to be good, evil, or neutral. It was also possible to be everything to everyone in Oblivion. You could be the leader of all the guilds at the same time, despite the fact that they openly conflicted with each other.
This is not possible in Fallout 3. When you make choices, it opens new doors to you, and also closes others. For example, if you decide blowup the town of Megaton, all the quests in that town are forever closed to you, but you also gain access to Tenpenny Tower. If you don't blowup Megaton, you won't be able to get into Tenpenny Tower, but you'll reap other rewards.
Visually, Fallout 3 is stunning. Although it's not the prettiest game on the 360, it is certainly one of the best. Perhaps best of all is the atmosphere. The world of Fallout has made a beautiful transition from 2D to 3D. Fallout 3 really captures your imagination as a utopian "world of tomorrow" that has been blown to Hell.
The world is rich with destructive detail. It looks lived in, and has seen some very hard times. Characters and enemies don't shine as much as the environments. Partly because of some stiff animations, but this is easily forgivable considering how great everything else is. There are also some minor clipping, and pop-in textures, but these are minimal, and don't detract from the game experience.
Fallout 3 is a masterpiece when it comes to the audio. The sound effects are brilliant, and have weight to them. Gunshots echo, and have a nice thump to them. NPC dialog is much more realistic thanks to more voice actors than Oblivion had. The ambient sounds are likewise great for the setting. No birds chirping or majestic waterfalls here. Instead, you'll hear the desolate wind blowing, rubble shifting underfoot, and the creaking of long dead trees.
The musical score is also outstanding. Towns have their own theme to them, and the title music is haunting. But best of all is the licensed 30's and 40's music. You can tune into several radio stations to hear tunes from a dead world. The song selection is brilliant, and most carry a ironic quality thanks to the wasteland setting around you.
The only downside to the audio is that Fallout 3 falls into the same "talking head" trap that Oblivion did when it comes to dialog. All dialog is presented in a first person view, with the NPC saying something, and you choosing a response. It works, but it's too simple. It certainly doesn't live up to the standards that Mass Effect set for dialog. Not a major issue, but sometimes dialog can drag on.
Once you complete the main story arc in Fallout 3, the game is over. No continuing to play after the ending. This gives your choices real weight, and also makes it impossible to be both good and evil. The choices you make are forever with that character. Because of this Fallout 3 has lots of replay value.
It will take the average gamer around 20 hours to complete the main story, but if you play the game multiple times you can easily put 100+ hours into this game. I played Oblivion for 150+ hours across two characters. Since Fallout 3 is a much larger world than Oblivion with more things to see and do, I wouldn't be surprised if people play for 200+ hours.
Fallout 3 is without a doubt the best RPG on the 360. It's an easy win for RPG of the year. Fallout 3 is a solid contender for overall Game of the Year, despite a strong list of games like GTA4 and Gears of War 2.
When it was first announced that Bethesda was making Fallout 3, and lot of series fans were concerned about the fate of their beloved Fallout. Would the game be just a post-nuclear clone of Oblivion? Would it be all action, and no RPG? Would it abandon the humor and theme of the first two games, and just be another crap of a game like the last console Fallout.
Well, the verdict is finally in. Fallout 3 not only lives up to the standards set by the last two games, it goes beyond and sets a new high water mark. This game does the series honor, and is far better than any other game in the series. Fallout 3 is a gem of an RPG, and should not be missed by any fan of the genre. Its setting, incredible story, and high replay value will attract new fans to the genre.
Fallout is better than ever, but war never changes.
STORY – 10
GAMEPLAY – 10
GRAPHICS – 9
SOUND – 10
VALUE – 10
OVERALL – 10